Hear over 1000 authors pronouncing and explaining their names. One minute audio recordings give a brief hello and some interesting facts about their name. There is also a Challenge Quiz for the pronunciation of several author's names, downloadable in PDF format. Hear what the author actually sounds like and try to imagine that author sitting right next to you! (Many links on the site go to paid materials.)This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Make author studies come alive by having the authors introduce themselves! Add an author recording link in a QR code attached to book jackets in your classroom or school library, making your library interactive. On your class website, have your student writers make their own introductions to their written pieces using a site such as Spreaker, reviewed here. Enjoy at your literary celebration!

Create simple, interactive presentations on any device using Swipe. Rearrange slides using drag and drop. Add YouTube and Vimeo videos by adding the URL. Upload images and documents right into your Swipe presentation. Use the Markdown feature to create simple, text-only slides. Add polls to make your presentation interactive, and view results with one click. Share presentations privately through email, publicly with a unique URL, or by embedding in your website. View and edit presentations on any computer or mobile device.

In the Classroom

Use Swipe to create quick slideshows for any classroom use. Easily share slides with information and images on your website or blog to remind students about a project or assignment. Create a presentation for Open House and embed on your site for parents who could not attend. Have students create presentations to "introduce" themselves to the class during the first week of school. Create a slide show to introduce any unit and have students guess what they will be learning. Create a Swipe "on the fly" as a review resource to embed on your class website or blog. This site is perfect for the BYOD/1:1 classroom since it is viewable on any device. Make quick "cue cards" using the Markdown tool for students to read their lines off a projector or interactive whiteboard during a video or school news broadcast. Practice reading fluency or sight words using markdown slides, too! Paste school or class announcements into slides and embed them on the class or school website. Have world language or ESL/ELL students write messages in their new language for a classroom "activity tour." Activities could include speaking, following directions such as "touch your nose" or question/answer about an image.

Moovly is a wonderful animation tool for creating videos and presentations. Create an account with your email and watch the two-minute video about how to use this tool. Click on "New Moov" to begin. Give your Moov a title and description then choose from templates offered or create your own Moov from scratch. Modify slides, text, font, image holders, and props. Preview your creation at any time with the play button. Stop and make changes as needed. Upload sounds from your computer in MP3 format: voice, music, or noises. These can be used in parallel, or click the microphone to record your voice. You can also make your Moovly interactive by using Flash. Save and share via YouTube, Facebook, email. You can also download to your computer using mp4 (video) or swf format. Download the 28-page PDF guide for step-by-step directions and answers to specific questions. Emailing customer support will get you answers within 24 hours. Free accounts can create unlimited videos that are each ten minutes long. The free account allows for 100MB or 20 items in their storage.

In the Classroom

Challenge older students to create their own Moovs. Students can use Moovly to share their ideas or to "prototype" an idea. Students can create videos to show math processes, explanations of complex concepts, review new learning, teach others, explain scientific processes, tell stories, or present research. Flip your classroom using Moovly presentations. Use Moovly to create teacher-authored animations for students in ANY grade. This is a great way to present new information or ideas for discussion. It is an easy way to prepare information for the class when a substitute is coming. Embed Moovly creations on your website or blog for students to review at home. Use a Moovly video on the first day of school to explain class rules or give an exciting introduction to the year ahead. Use Moovly to create movies or presentations for back to school night or conference nights to display on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Teacher-librarians can ask students to create Moovly book reviews to share kiosk style in the library/media center.

Basecamp is an online tool for organizing and managing collaborative projects. This site includes many features such as file storage, progress tracking, and to-do lists. Create your class account, paying special attention to the directions to make it a FREE teacher account. Then add projects to work on. Invite others to join your Basecamp. Begin adding files, to-do lists, documents, and whatever else you wish to share. As others accept your invitation to your Basecamp, they have access to all files and can add, share, and comment as needed. Regular accounts for non-teachers are not free. Click on Support to view FAQ and Help Guides to learn about the many features included with a Basecamp account.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Use your teacher/class account with students as a tool for organizing and collaborating on group projects. As the account owner, you will be able to see what each group is doing. Set up projects for each small group working on a project. Demonstrate the different tools and functions on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Use Basecamp to help students remain on track with project deadlines. Keep track of projects with your students by having mini-conferences and using Basecamp as your guide. Use this tool to collaborate with colleagues for use with professional projects such as unit planning and long term scheduling. You may also want to use it with your grad school group projects.

Annotate any image using custom, re-sizable text with Image Flip Meme Generator. Choose one of Meme Generator's template images or upload your own. Keep your image private by downloading it to your computer, or you can save it on Image Flip. Sharing your Meme is easy via any social network, or you can copy the code for the image link or the image HTML.

In the Classroom

Since the images can be kept private, this would make the perfect "getting to know you" activity for beginning of the school year. Have students upload a picture of themselves doing their favorite activity and label it with witty text or a favorite quote (or song lyric?). Have them upload images that represent their interests and character traits. Print the images with text for a back to school bulletin board. Alternatively, make a slide show to play as the parents enter the room. Use a tool like Zoho Show (similar to PowerPoint, but easier and free) - reviewed here). At the end of the year, students could do a "that was then, this is now" project. Have them upload a current picture doing a favorite activity, and different images that represent new interests they have learned this year. Post the images side by side for spring open house night or as a year-end activity. To find Creative Commons images for student projects (with credit, of course), try Compfight, reviewed here. For other uses, have students practice new words in a world language class by labeling and identifying images in that language. Create writing prompts using several annotated images. Have students create annotated images to explain key terms in science class. In ELA class, make homophone or vocabulary images to show the correct word along with an image that explains it.

Create your own novelty tickets. Choose from two different ticket styles and enter information such as row and seat numbers, event title and place, and date of the event. After entering information, click "Make My Ticket!" to view and save your ticket in JPEG format.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Ask your students to use the Fake Ticket Generator to create excitement for class presentations. Have them create tickets and hand them out to other students to use to be admitted to class for their presentation. Create tickets to hand out to students at the beginning of any unit to create interest and excitement. Make tickets to give to parents as invitation to Meet the Teacher night, Science and Book Fairs, PTO meetings, and more. Create tickets that students can earn, such as a ticket to skip a homework assignment or to have extra time at centers. Give out tickets to special events in the library/media center, such as Dress as Your Favorite Author Day. Have students create tickets to a classroom museum or science fair. Use tickets as a behavior incentive.

Comments

I sent ticket invitations to students the week before the Pixar Short Films Plot Study to make sure they came to school (some of my SpEd kids have attendance issues) and were on time. 6thKay, NM, Grades: 6 - 8

Never mispronounce a name again, thanks to the help of NameCoach! Users record their names using their own computer or any other device. Add phonetic spelling or pronunciation tips. You can listen to the names as often as you wish. Create your account to make lists for Back to School, award ceremonies, graduations, and much more. After creating your name page, share a link to participants through email or as a link on your class webpage or blog. Create a master list with sublists for use in different departments, classes, or for individual events.

In the Classroom

Create a master list of student names in your school or class using NameCoach. Provide a subset for different activities such as award ceremonies, after-school programs, or for student tutors. Share with your school's ESL/ELL teacher as an authentic way to learn and practice unfamiliar names. Provide this list (and URL) to any substitute coming to your classroom. Use it in world language classes to help students learn pronunciation of new names.

This CurriConnects collection of books takes you on a journey to Alaska and Hawaii through the pages of a book. Every state boasts culture and history of its own, and these two have extra rich offerings. Discover their history, people, and culture, both historic and contemporary, through both fiction and nonfiction. Challenge your students to flip their view of the "Lower 48" or "Big America" (the contiguous states) through the experience of Alaska and/or Hawaii. Include these books during units on states, multiculturalism, or U.S. geography. CurriConnects thematic book lists include ISBN numbers for ordering or searching, interest grade levels, ESL levels and Lexiles'® (where available) to match student independent reading levels to challenge, not frustrate. For more on text complexity and Lexiles'''®, see this information from the Lexile Framework. Don't miss other CurriConnects themes being added regularly. If your library does not have the books, try interlibrary loan!

In the Classroom

Include these books for independent reading during a unit on U.S. geography, multiculturalism, or the states. Compare the life of children living in Alaska or Hawaii to the students in your own class. The conversations will easily evolve into projects where students can compare and contrast or create "profiles" of childhood in different states and cultures.

Open up the lines of parent/teacher communication with SchoolCircle. Use your email address to create your account and set up class Circles. Manage Circles to share messages, pictures, and files. Add tasks, organize events, and assign roles. Members of Circles receive three types of emails: a daily digest received each evening, a morning email with information due that day, and a weekly digest each Sunday. There is an option to send urgent messages immediately.

In the Classroom

Set up accounts for all of your classes. Send homework, project, and supply reminders. Send changes to plans due to a snow day or other emergency. Remind students of upcoming events, practices, or things they need to bring to school. Don't forget to include any extracurricular activities. Use this tool to communicate with parents. Allow them to sign up for these updates at back to school night using a laptop or provide them the necessary information on your class web page. Remind parents of big tests, report cards, field trips, deadlines, back to school night, school spirit days, conferences, and more. Learning support teachers can promote organizational skills by having students and their parents sign up to receive reminders about tests and homework. Add messages with tips for parents to help their elementary child study. Need supply donations? Send out a request using SchoolCircle. Set up a faculty reminder group within your school for emergency closures or department meetings and activities.

Wheel Decide helps make decisions interesting and fair. Choose from ready-made wheels with choices such as games or food. Create your own wheels. Scroll down below the wheel and choose "Make/Modify Wheel" to customize your wheel for any purpose. Add up to 100 choices and a title. Advanced options allow you to remove a choice after landing on it, choose from color options, adjust the length of spin, and more. Cancel the "click" sound if it is distracting. At the time of this review saving a wheel required signing in with your Facebook account or bookmarking/copying the URL.

In the Classroom

Use Wheel Decide to select a student to do an activity or to answer a question. Allow students to use the name generator to choose which classmate comes next. Create your class name wheel and SAVE it to use throughout the year. Use Wheel Decide as part of a probability unit to chart how often names or items appear with random spins (be sure not to remove them from the list as they appear). Create custom wheels throughout the year to help with decisions such as students' choice activities, options for games at indoor recess, or subjects for reports.

Highlight and print (or view) only what you want from a web page using Printliminator. Drag the bookmarklet to your browser's toolbar. (Printliminator works with Chrome ONLY.) Then click the bookmarklet from any page to open up tool options. Mouse over your web page and click on red boxes to remove them from the page. When ready, preview and send to your printer. Be sure to watch the Quick Video Demo for a full overview of all features of the Printliminator.

In the Classroom

Install the Printliminator on your browser tool bar. Show students how to use Prinliminator on your interactive whiteboard or projector for use when they are researching or preparing a study guide for a test. Use when viewing web pages on your interactive whiteboard to eliminate unnecessary information. Delete unnecessary information from webpages. Send to print and save as PDF for use with student handouts or links from your class web page. Of course, you will want to include your SOURCE on the handouts as a model of good digital citizenship. This is also a great tool to differentiate for any student. Use this tool to share handouts or PDFs with students who are easily distracted to help them stay focused on what matters.

Create your own meme images (easily shared, annotated images). Choose from a collection of the Internet's most popular recurring characters. Double click any image on the home page or upload your own photo to begin. Add text for top and bottom captions. Click the "generate" link and view your finished meme. Save your completed image to your computer. Additional options allow for changing fonts, distorting text, and adding animation to memes.

In the Classroom

Use this popular online tool to bring interest and amusement to classroom lessons! Create an interesting meme to introduce a new topic or unit on your interactive whiteboard (or projector). Provide one portion of text for a meme and have students complete their own version. Ask small groups of students to create memes for classroom use with classroom rules, due date reminders, curriculum terms, grammar tips, and more. Have students create memes at the end of any unit or book to quickly summarize content or use as a visual mnemonic.

Create short animated video presentations using RawShort's cloud-based video maker. Create an account to begin. Choose the free templates option on the left side of the page to view pre-made options or begin with a blank template to create your own design. Name the design and launch the video builder. Use options to add backgrounds, images, text, and other features. Videos include just five slides, keeping to the concept of creating SHORT presentations. When complete, save and share your video using social media links or upload to YouTube. Free accounts offer storage of 25 mb and max resolution of 480 SD.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Use your interactive whiteboard (or projector) and a student emcee to show students the templates and how to use this tool. Ask students to make a plan (storyboard) for their video project. Talk about how to distill your message to only five slides! Have students write and illustrate slides as book reviews for independent reading they have done. Use this tool for students to make book promos for the library/media center. Challenge your gifted students to create a simple video presentation that goes beyond your regular curriculum. Have students make slide shows telling a short story, explaining the life of a famous person, chemical equations, solving for X, and more. During a unit on plants, have students create a video guide for plant care or a show about the world's strangest plants. ESL/ELL or world language students could create videos to practice using their new vocabulary. Create animated presentations for introduction of new units, projects, and lessons.

Find several different comic strip templates at this simple, yet useful site. Choose from templates with various numbers of panels and squares or arch tops. Click on any template to view and print the PDF version.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Have small groups of students each create one panel as a summary of what the class just learned. Use comics in math and turn a word problem into a comic strip/cartoon. In social studies create a comic strip/cartoon about a historic event, person, place, or speech. In language arts take a novel or non-fiction book and create a comic strip/cartoon depicting the characters and plot. Have students write summaries of current events or responses to reading assignments. With younger students, use an interactive whiteboard or projector to create a class comic on a current topic of study, such as the different parts of a plant, the planets, or a butterfly's life cycle. Use these templates for students to plan out storyboards for more involved projects, such as videos. In emotional support or autistic support classes, create comics to show how people interact. In world languages or with ELL students, create comics to reinforce correct language. Looking for even more comic resources? Check out TeachersFirst's complete collection of Comics and Cartoons.

Highlight and show tweets from any hashtag or twitter handle in a creative and visually appealing way with TweetBeam. Enter any hashtag or sign in to your Twitter account to view a stunning, real-time visualization of tweets. They update as new tweets arrive. Mouse over any image to view the entire text. Click the four arrows near the top left of the screen to view in full screen.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

TweetBeam is perfect for use on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Follow hashtags on current events to view information in real-time. Do you have your own hashtag for your class? If not, this is a perfect way to get started! Use TweetBeam to interact and follow other classrooms and projects anywhere in the world. Create a hashtag for any school event and display TweetBeam on the big screen to participants to encourage them to interact and participate! Looking for more ways to use Twitter in the classroom? Read more about Twitter at TeachersFirst's Twitter for Teachers page.

LibrAdventures is a map-based exploration of literature, authors, artists, and film makers (powered by Google). Choosing an author, a genre, a literary timeframe, or a location allows you to view, using either map view or satellite view, the physical location in which the author created some of his or her famous literary works. The beauty of LibrAdventures is the combination of being able to see, either on the map or using a panoramic view, the place where great literary figures lived and did their work. There are some classic children's authors included. Many of the views also offer 360-degree panoramic views. Each collection (called an "adventure" on the site) provides narrative describing the connections between the place and the author's work, links to further information, and other explanatory material such as a film clip or other media.

In the Classroom

Visual learners, or those who find it difficult to make a connection with an artist or author from the past, may find that walking the streets near the author's house, or seeing the view he or she may have seen from the window, helps bring the author and that work alive. The ability to use a more interactive interface to learn more about an author will also appeal to those more accustomed to digital media and hyperlinks in order to associate concepts with a visual representation. The interactive maps can be used on an interactive whiteboard (or projector) to accompany an introduction to the life of a particular author before tackling his or her work. As they read or view works by the writer or artist, have students look for descriptive passages in the works that seem to describe what they "see" or experience on the related "adventure" on this site.

Do you need fresh ideas and tips for writing across the curriculum? This site should give you lots of inspiration and step-by-step suggestions to get going. Read about the benefits of cross-curricular writing. Get started with the RAFTS prompts information. RAFTS prompts provide students with focus and clarity in writing projects and encourage creativity and freedom of thought. Be sure to check out these thoughtful ideas as you gear up your writing instruction.

In the Classroom

Use ideas from this site as a starting point for any writing projects. Share this site with other teachers as a professional development activity. Incorporate suggestions from this site into your Writing Workshop. Have students use Ourboox, reviewed here. Ourboox creates beautiful page-flipping digital books in minutes, and you can embed video, music, animation, games, maps and more. Have students create blogs using Throwww, here. This tool allows you to create "quick and easy" blogs to be used one time only. A unique URL to your blog allows you to share it easily.

Learningpod offers a large database of free practice test questions. Find free Common Core aligned question sets in English Language Arts and Math for grades 2-8. There are practice sets for standardized tests. Search the database of over 49,000 practice questions. Questions are in "pods" containing 2-12 questions on each of the individual topics. Use your email to create a free account. Assign and share with students by embed code, link, or print in PDF format. Answer keys and explanations are easy to access. Keep track of progress through your account, and view summaries of your results on each pod. View comparisons to how other members fared with the same content.

In the Classroom

Introduce this tool to students on your interactive whiteboard (or projector). Lower elementary students will need help reading the directions on the site, so do a few together. Share pods for student practice on your class website or blog. Create a link to practice pods on classroom computers. Encourage students or parents to create their own Learningpod account to practice and review content at home. Share this site with parents (on your class wiki or website) as an excellent resource for test preparation.

Learn what you need to do and know to start using Twitter. Sign up to get a Twitter mentor or BE a mentor! Find out what to do before creating a Twitter account, get advice about whom to follow, explore programs to use to help you manage your Twitter account, and read how to keep track of everything. Learn about all the terms needed to be successful using Twitter as a teacher. This site is clean, simple, and very helpful!

In the Classroom

After creating an account, look at the page for what else you can start doing. Find other educators to follow on the Before You Begin page, and also look at participating in a Twitter Chat. Find a list of chats to join, and the day and time they meet at Twitter - Education Chats.As a teaching tool, Twitter is amazing! If your school permits access, have a class account for your class to follow people who work in fields and topics you study. Even primary grades can connect with other classes or "follow" many learning experiences via Twitter. Learn much more about teaching ideas and tools for Twitter in the many resources listed on TeachersFirst Twitter for Teachers page.

Publish, share, and browse interactive web publications with Calameo. Sign up for an account using your email or Facebook account. Upload documents in most common formats such as Microsoft Office, Adobe PDF, and OpenOffice. Use the link editor to add YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimeo, and SoundCloud content to your magazine. Share completed publications through a unique URL or embed directly into your website or blog. Calameo is available in many languages. Be sure to check Calameo's help links to find full features and suggestions for use. Use caution when allowing students to explore this site on their own, as some content may not be appropriate for the classroom.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Use this site to engage students in Writing for Digital Publication, an important part of the Common Core. In social studies or government class have individual students or small groups design magazines for the candidate of their choice. Remember those travel brochures your world language students used to make with glue sticks and scissors? Try this online tool instead. World language students can also create an interactive magazine telling a story in their new language. In science class students can design a booklet to explain cells, life cycles, or any science topic. Instead of a book report, try a digital magazine. Do an author study via a digital magazine. Create a poetry magazine. Have your ESL/ELL students create a bilingual magazine in English AND their native language. Create digital magazines for any subject or topic: explain an event in history, demonstrate different types of animals or habitats. Create an ongoing Calameo magazine of class activities.